The fun continues for Headlight.com at the end of this week, when we abandon our current office space and relocate to a much bigger one, large enough to accommodate our tremendous growth rate.

Have a great week, and please feel free to send your feedback at any time.

-Gabe

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Despite an array of measures over the years -- the 25-year-old Political Reform Act is the most widely known -- aimed at improving financial disclosure, California has been laggard at giving the wider public access to the critical documents.

Some three dozen other states already do it in some fashion, but California had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the era of electronic political finance reporting.

But on Sunday, California entered that new era, and in a way that makes the state the leader in electronic disclosure. Indeed, many political observes believe California's new system is the nation's best.

The difference between paper documents, which are available to relatively few people such as political junkies and Capitol followers, and electronic documents, which can be accessed by millions of people with the click of a mouse, is fundamental.

Electronic data can be sorted, stored and examined in large amounts relatively quickly; it can be placed in spreadsheets and relational databases.

Paper data for just one major campaign filing can take hours to review, and the documents are available only at scattered locations around the state, or directly from campaigns.

The secretary of state, California's elections office, now is posting on its Web site disclosure reports for the March 7 primary election for state candidates and ballot initiatives. Campaign committees that spend or raise more than $100,000 will have to file; in the November general election, that benchmark will drop to $50,000.

The disclosure requirement applies to all candidates of the Assembly and Senate, as well as the committees that spend for or against ballot measures.

That means a voter with a computer and modem can analyze the reports of local candidates -- not just the public speeches -- and make informed choices about whom to select.

This new process marks a silent, but profound, shift in California politics. The fact that critical political information is now quickly available to large numbers of people is truly a milestone.

Another irony is that the secretary of state, which is coordinating this revolution, has long been viewed as a backwater, a second-tier member of the state's constitutional offices operated largely by a highly professional staff. Indeed, there were serious attempts over the years to turn the office into an appointed position, on the theory that its functions are largely ceremonial.

The office's principal political importance is that it has served mainly as a springboard to higher office -- former Secretary of State Jerry Brown is a case in point.

But the current secretary of state is Bill Jones, a former Assemblyman for Fresno, a quiet Republican moderate little known outside the Capitol until he became the state's elections officer. Under Jones, the office has developed into a major component of the political landscape.

Jones supported the Democrat-authored legislation that established the electronic reporting system, as did other Republicans, including former Gov. Pete Wilson. The result is that the new online process is free of partisan taint, a crucial characteristic in the warfare of politics.

The only questions now are whether the online service will really be utilized by large numbers of voters and whether the information will have an impact on elections.

Skeptics say that the effect will be limited because only those who can afford computers will be able to access the system. But about half of all homes nationally have computers already -- a proportion that is higher in California. And surely the system is better than what has existed up until now.

Moreover, as computers become less expensive, more people will have them.

And that means, over time, that voters will use significant data instead of the babblings of slick political advertisements to make political decisions.

It's a start.

Good article on the extra $3 billion laying around. I wheeled it to our government members (27 cities, 3 counties and 3 regional planning associations) by e-mail. With copyright information, of course.

- Steven Aceti, J.D.
Encinitas, Calif.

To the Editor,

Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your Capitol Action Weekly e-articles. Your writing is extremely clear and concise, and I enjoy reading the weekly updates of what's going on with you!

Keep up the good work!

- Becky Johnson
Sacramento, Calif.

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